These Bio-Inspired Skin-Like Displays Are 3D Printed

The range of colours in the nature is amazing, but perhaps even more astonishing is the ability of certain creatures to actively mimic them. Now, the Central University of Florida developed a new method of creating a flexible skinlike display – with the help of a special 3D printer.

Through the use of liquid crystals each pixel can display each colour, which creates a big benefit: There is no more need to build the display out of lots of layers. With this benefit in mind the scientists decided to use nanoimprint lithography (short form NIL) because it’s very difficult to create the needed small structures. For these requirements they decided to use a 3D printer produced by nanoscribe. This printer works with the next generation 3D laser lithography system that’s a combination of an ultra-precise piezo mode for arbitrary 3D trajectories (FBMS) and the high-speed galvo mode (MBFS) for fastest structuring in a layer-by-layer fashion. With this method stamps are created. Then displays are created with the stamps – each stamp should be able to create at least 1000 imprints.

Now, they wish to bring these results from the lab to the world through “e-skin displays Inc.”. On the company’s website you can find the newest information concerning this technology.